08:06 Maithripala Sirisena confirmed as new president

Sri Lanka’s election commissioner has confirmed that Maithripala Sirisena has been elected the country’s new president. The commissioner has announced that Sirisena obtained 51.28% of the valid votes cast in Thursday’s election while Mahinda Rajapaksa got 47.58%.

He will be sworn in as president later on Friday.

06:42 First pictures here of the new president - or rather president-elect. He won’t be sworn in for a few ours yet. It shows him in Colombo, leaving the opposition leader’s office after meeting with political leaders who supported him.05:58

US Secretary of State John Kerry is up early - or late. He’s released this statement:

I commend President Rajapaksa for accepting the results of the election in the proud tradition of peaceful and orderly transfers of power in Sri Lanka.

05:48

As we wait for the full results of the election some more on what Sirisena could be as a president. Bloomberg has pulled out some interesting quotes from his manifesto which reinforce the idea that he will not be a pushover for China and its business interest.

The article which is headlined ‘Why Sri Lanka’ s election matter for China’ quotes Sirisena as saying:

    The land that the White Man took over by means of military strength is now being obtained by foreigners by paying ransom to a handful of persons. If this trend continues for another six years our country would become a colony and we would become slaves.

The article goes on to mention:
Chinese government lending to Sri Lanka increased 50-fold over the past decade to $490 million in 2012.

05:40

Jason Burke has just sent in a great profile of the president-elect Maithripala Sirisena. He calls him a canny operator who has been involved in Sri Lankan politics since he was a teenager. But it appears he is no friend of Rajapaksa who accused him of ‘stabbing him in the back’. That followed a dinner the two had together before Sirisena declared he would run against the then president.

As the men tucked into a traditional Sri Lankan dinner of rice pancakes and curry, Sirisena gave no indication of what he was about to do: declare a candidacy that would unite the fragmented opposition in a high-risk gamble against entrenched and ruthless opponents.

I felt sorry for [Rajapaksa] but could not stay anymore with a leader who had plundered the country, government and national wealth,” the president elect later said.

05:11

Amantha also mentions that the one question on many people’s lip will be what the new President will mean for international relations. Both India and China are important players with Sri Lanka. China has huge investments in the country.

On that subject the Business Standard has given its verdict on the result saying China stands to lose out. In this article Aditi Phadnis writes:

Sirisena has however announced he will scrap many of the contracts between Sri Lanka and China in the infrastructure sector including a new city proposed to be built on reclaimed land off Colombo that will amount to USD 1.5 bn and a casino project being promoted by an Australian company with an investment amounting to USD400m.

04:53

Amantha Perera is in Colombo for The Guardian and says that the mood on the street is, for the moment, mixed.

Right now people are trying to take stock of whats going on. Wehave had some sporadic celebrations -not mass celebratiomns. People are trying to take stock of what is actually happening.

The official results are likely to be heard by noon. What we have heard is that the swearing in ceremony could take place at 6pm.

04:31

The Times of India has produced an interesting Ten Things You Should Know About the news president-elect. It includes the interesting line that he was jailed aged 20 on suspicion of leading a revolt against the then government.

04:01

Counting continues in the Sri Lankan presidential poll (this election was only for President, challenger and all-but-confirmed President-elect Maithripala Sirisena has pledged to hold parliamentary elections within 100 days).

The latest figures have the challenger Sirisena a little over 400,000 votes in front, with about 52 per cent of the vote. A senior government official and Rajapaksa ally told The Guardian’s South Asia Correspondent Jason Burke:

We don’t have any good news. It is all bad news. I think people need a change and this is democracy.

03:51

From one new leader to another: Narendra Modi, elected Prime Minister of India in May, has spoken with Sri Lanka’s President-elect Maithripala Sirisena, and offered his congraulations.

03:26

In a week when the often-high price of journalism has been made starkly apparent, it is timely to revisit this.

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces - and, in Sri Lanka, journalism.

The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name.

The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

As editor of the Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunge, was a fearless critic of the President Rajapaksa. But curiously he was also a long-standing acquaintance of the man whom he so often publicly criticised.

Wickrematunge was gunned down as he drove to work one morning in 2008. Nobody has ever been brought to justice for his murder.

He wrote this editorial, with instructions it be published in the event of his death, days before he was assassinated.

When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.

It is, perhaps, the finest and bravest piece of journalism of modern times. A truly extraordinary piece of writing, and a powerful reminder of the importance of free, fair and uncowed journalism.

This correspondent, based in South Asia for three years, had a copy pinned to his office wall.

03:09

Sri Lanka’s President-elect Maithripala Sirisena

•     63 years old
•     One of 12 brothers
•     Married with three children
•     Buddhist
•     The son of a World War II veteran, Sirisena studied in Sri Lanka and in Russia
•     He joined the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (the party currently led by Rajapaksa) in 1967 and was a member until 2014, when     he defected to join the New    Democratic Front and challenge for the Presidency.
•     He was briefly jailed for his part in an insurrection against the then government in 1971
•     In 2008, as a government minister, he survived an assassination attempt from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

02:48

Maithripala Sirisena was one of President Rajapaksa’s closest allies, and one of the most powerful men in his government. His sudden defection in November, his candidacy for President, and then his victory, were all stunning surprises.

The BBC reported Sirisena told Rajapaksa of his defection and challenge shortly after they’d shared a meal of ‘hoppers’, rice pancakes, one night.

Rajapaksa said of his lieutenant-turned rival, he “eats hoppers in the night and then stabs you in the back in the morning”.

Sirisena later said he felt sorry for the president during the meal but he couldn’t remain with a leader ‘who had plundered the country, government and natural wealth’.

02:42

There’s pressure all around in Sri Lankan politics.
Sri Lanka's Royal Astrologer Sumanadasa Abeygunawardena Sri Lanka’s Royal Astrologer Sumanadasa Abeygunawardena

As President, Mahinda Rajapaksa relied heavily on his ‘Royal Astrologer’ to choose auspicious dates and times for his political acts. As The New York Times reported, astrologer Sumanadasa Abeygunawardena said of the President’s early poll: “he has such auspicious time and so much power in his planetary position that he cannot be defeated in an election”.

02:31

It is early in the morning in Colombo. As Sri Lanka wakes up to news of a new President, The Guardian’s South Asia Correspondent Jason Burke says:

If seven weeks anyone had said Mahinda Rajapaksa would be conceding defeat and vacating presidential office in quite such an apparently docile fashion it would have seemed a very brave prediction indeed. No one expected a challenge, let alone a defeat.

Rajapaksa had sought early polls. but this may have been an acknowledgement of his growing unpopularity more than a statement of strength. The wave of support from the Sinhala majority that bore him to power has ebbed as the benefits of economic growth have failed to reach the poor, especially in rural areas. Corruption and apparent nepotism played a role.

An adamant refusal to move on reconciliation with the Tamil minority and growing sectarian violence denied him votes among other constituencies.

But Maithripala Sirisena,a surprise candidate and victor, marks only a break in terms of personality. He’s close to Rajapaksa ideologically and culturally, if much less flamboyant. And this alone may ease transition.

The Rajapaksa clan though are tenacious and effective politicians. They may be calculating that a tactical retreat is in order. There are parliamentary elections coming, the opposition alliance is ideologically hugely diverse and has nothing to hold it together beyond the aim of removing the incumbent. that’s now done.

A prolonged period of political chaos would open the way for a Rajapaksa comeback in the mid, if not the short, term.

02:24

The reasons for Rajapaksa’s defeat will be analysed and intepreted in the days to come.

But shortly before the election The Economist offered a number of reasons why people were preparing to turn away from the leader who was once supremely popular. Rajapaksa remained confident of a victory, calling this election two years early.

The magazine reported that although Rajapaksa had been popular for his role in ending Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil was, the victory was ruthless and bloody and he remained a divisive figure.

He has done little to contain the spread of an ugly strain of anti-Muslim prejudice. He has stacked the administration with his family (four brothers, a son and a nephew are important politicians). Corruption has worsened. Mr Rajapaksa has used his big parliamentary majority to undermine the independence of the judiciary and to tamper with the constitution—removing the two-term limit on presidential tenures, for example, strengthening an already overpowerful “executive presidency” and failing to do anything to afford Tamils the autonomy the constitution promises them. Probing journalists and social activists have lived in fear.